Chief Handy, I recently discovered that the HBDRA and City Council had applied for a permit parking district on 7th,8th and 9th. In their original proposal of trying to establish this district, they originally had anticipated it going to 12th street. The problem was that none of my neighbors on 10th or 11th or 12th wanted such a district. When they came trying to socialize the idea with us, they mentioned how you were an advocate of this permit parking district and that you were hopeful that it would pass. I had to educate everyone that came to my door with a similar pitch as I had directly asked you this question a few months ago and recalled your answer “It is my job to enforce the laws that the residents and city council pass and I am not taking a position on the issue”. Municipal Code requires the city to perform a study of the impact to adjoining streets. This report was not done as the transportation manager claimed he didn’t know any way to conduct such a study. Even though he originally said that it was ‘likely’ that I would be impacted, once I brought it to the attention of the city attorney, he immediately changed his opinion and could no longer recollect the conversation we had shared just 2 days earlier. His position changed to ‘it was at least possible’. My question to you is this. Did the city’s Transporation Manager or anyone in the public works department request assistance from you or anyone in law enforcement to help understand whether you believed that establishing such a district would cause the criminals to venture out further into the downtown area to seek out free parking? It takes my daughter and me 57 seconds to walk from 10th street to 9th street and approximately 2.5 minutes to walk to 7th street. Given that the goal of this is to remove criminal activity from their streets and any permit parking solution is NOT legally allowed to just pass off the problem, I just wanted to know if the police had any position on the matter. It seems that predicting criminal activity and helping to determine how permit parking might affect this and whether it was ‘likely’ to shift criminal activity would reside in your domain. I really believe that our police force is doing a great job and I know you having staffing and budget limitations that are out of your control, but in an attempt to remove any perceived problems on their streets, they chose not to listen to my neighbors and I and it seemed to me that they were unfairly critical of you and your officer’s response times and handling of crime in their area because it fit with their narrative. I just want honest answers to how this can occur and as a 13 year resident of 10th street, I am appalled at the direction that this is headed. I believe that the demographic information about who is causing the problems can be found within your department. If they are 21-25 year olds, as I believe they are, then walking an additional 2.5 minutes to avoid the problems and costs of parking in the downtown structure will not cause a change in their behavior, it will only push it on to our streets. I know you are busy, please feel free to give me a call to discuss if writing an email response would take too much of your time.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 05:10:04 +0000
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